A latest study conducted by Mayo Clinic shows that obese teenagers who lose weight are more prone to anorexia nervosa, bulimia and eating disorders.
The researchers also found that the conditions may go unnoticed by the family members thinking it as a part of weight-loss progress.
"Given research that suggests early intervention promotes best chance of recovery, it is imperative that these children and adolescents' eating disorder symptoms are identified and intervention is offered before the disease progresses," Dr. Leslie Sim, an eating disorder expert at the Mayo Clinic Children's Center, wrote in the study.
The researchers maintained that early intervention was lacking for eating disorders and other conditions. But if ignored, the disorders may prove dangerous and cause life-threatening problems. Researchers said that around 35 percent of the teens who visited Mayo clinic for eating disorder treatments had been initially diagnosed for obesity and overweight.
"We think obese kids are at risk for eating disorders because they are getting a lot of media messages that they are not healthy and that there is something wrong with them and they need to change their ways," Sim said, according to Newsday. "And because they are teens, they do extreme things."
"Whenever you see a kid losing weight, you have to see exactly how they are doing it," Dr Metee Comkornruecha, an adolescent medicine specialist at Miami Children's Hospital, said. "Weight loss at any cost is not a good thing. They have to be doing it in a healthy manner, which means eating the right foods and exercising."
These teens and adolescents are a high risk category for eating disorders sorely under-recognized by the medical fraternity and the family. Closer attention needs to be paid to sudden weight loss in teens to see that it does not become an emotional and physical problem.
